Ava DuVernay‘s African-American Film Festival Releasing Movement (AFFRM) has launched its second annual membership drive, in an effort to assist black, brown and female filmmakers.

“It’s important that we support filmmakers who are being excluded from the traditional ways of distributing their films,” DuVernay told TheWrap Monday.

Since 2011, AFFRM’s Array Releasing has distributed eight independent features including DuVernay’s “Middle of Nowhere,” which won the 2012 Sundance directing award and Alrick Brown’s “Kinyarwanda,” winner of the 2011 Sundance Audience Award.

“I financed AFFRM for the last four years out of my directing money,” said DuVernay, who founded the film releasing collective. “But last year we started to say, ‘hey, does anyone want to donate to this effort?’ And
we had a donor drive that we call a ‘rebel drive’… and we had some 750 people who gave.”

The group’s 30-day membership campaign runs from May 4 through June 5 and is supported by such Hollywood insiders as “Selma” star David Oyelowo and “Dreamgirls” actress Anika Noni Rose.

"52: The Search for the Loneliest Whale in the World" producer Adrian Grenier, photographed by Patrick Fraser at TheWrap's Kia photobooth during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah on Jan. 23, 2015.

"The End of the Tour" star Jason Segel and director James Ponsoldt, photographed by Patrick Fraser at TheWrap's Kia photobooth during the 2015 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah on Jan. 23, 2015.